The people tweeted and Apple listened. The tech giant debuted more than 70 new emojis for the developer and public beta channels – including several food-themed graphics – with the release of iOS 12.1 on October 2, but critics immediately took issue with how Apple chose to depict a bagel.
Per the original emoji release earlier this month, the plain bagel was shown without any butter or cream cheese, an apparent sticking point for breakfast lovers across the world. As one naysayer tweeted alongside a photo of the “naked” bagel at the time, “I’d like to report a hate crime.”
Even Philadelphia Cream Cheese weighed in on the controversy by “fixing” the bagel and tweeting, “Hey @Apple and @Unicode, Your new bagel emoji definitely needs an upgrade. Don’t worry, we’ve fixed it for you. You’re welcome.”
However, per a tweet from Jeremy Bruge, chief emoji officer at Emojipedia, Apple has now fixed its earlier mistake. “Responding to complaints, Apple’s bagel emoji has been updated in the latest iOS 12.1 beta,” Bruge tweeted on Monday, October 15, along with a split photo of the before and after bagels, the later of which is shown with cream cheese.
“More details. Are you happy now, New York?” Bruge added. “Apple’s old bagel design was totally fine to convey the concept of ‘bagel.’ There’s no doubt the new one looks more appetizing though.”
According to Emojipedia, bagels are more tricky to design than one would think. “Designs from major vendors until now had been split on whether to include a filling in the bagel or not,” the site explains. “Arguably, a bagel with cream cheese is a different item to simply a ‘bagel’, however as each emoji generally represents an entire class of objects, that’s unlikely to be an issue in practice.”
While most agreed the updated bagel emoji, which has yet to be rolled out to the public, was a marked improvement over the first version, not everyone was on board. Check out some varied reactions to the bagel emoji below:
I’m sorry, but Apple’s bagel emoji changes are wrong. Bagel should be plain. The new emoji should be bagel+ZWJ+cheese
— Jo Shields (@directhex) October 16, 2018
So that many people were so bored with their lives that they complained to Apple about the bagel emoji not having cream cheese that they changed it? I want that much free time.
— Queen Brat (@betty0674) October 16, 2018
I think the bagel emoji needs variants like the face emoji – stick bagel, egg bagel, pumpernickel, etc.
— Eric Shapiro (@EricShapiro) October 16, 2018
Thank goodness. Wasn’t sure I could go on without this. #Apple#emojis
“Apple added cream cheese to its bagel emoji after receiving complaints” https://t.co/rXHPR0QzF6
— Becky Schol (@bschol) October 16, 2018
still looks awful. new yorkers are disappointed
— Raymond Wong📱💾📼 (@raywongy) October 16, 2018
Apple must’ve put their entire A-team on the re-redesign of the bagel emoji because now it looks photorealistic. pic.twitter.com/A6IBZjWZtF
— Spike ⛏ Rundle (@flyosity) October 15, 2018
Is that cream cheese or fondant? Disgusting. Would expect to find this at an airport gate for $6.99.
— Pavel A. Samsonov (@PavelASamsonov) October 16, 2018
This is a solid change in texture and shape that should solve any glazed donut confusion.
It’s more golden and they added lighting to help convey that. The contrasting cream cheese removes all doubt. Tight work, Apple!
— ᴶᵒˢʰᵘᵃ ᴶᵒⁿᵉˢ 🦇 (@mindfad) October 16, 2018
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